Family Conversation
by Shutterbug5269
Summary: My post ep for Get a clue. Includes spoilers for the episode. Yes, I think that Alexis is going about this whole Pi situation the wrong way and has been from the beginning. That she is asking too much of her dad to simply accept him. Not trying to make either character look bad as I love them both.
1. Division

**Family Conversation**

**Chapter One  
Division**

Not five minutes went by after closing the door on her father, before Alexis began to feel guilty. She began to wonder if maybe she had taken the tangent of passive aggressive behavior she had been unleashing on him since learning of his engagement to Detective Beckett just a bit too far.

Dad had come back, his hat in his hand and his heart on his sleeve to apologize for his behavior at dinner the other night and she had shut him down. Probably a little harder than she needed to really, but she was still angry over his attitude at her housewarming dinner and had lashed out the only way she could.

His promise to try to learn to accept that Pi was part of her life may not have been sincere, but his apology for the rude and condescending behavior he had exhibited at dinner had been. She could see it all over his face. Her dad had never been able to lie to her...had never really tried to that she was aware of. Concealed things, yes, omitted things, certainly, but he has always told her the truth.

His offer to sit down with her over ice cream and try to sort out their differences had been as heartfelt as his apology, even if it was premature and poorly timed. It was the way they had always worked things out in the past and she knew that, but she shut that down too. Closed off all of his avenues of communication with her, just like she had the first time she broke up with Ashley. For no other valid reason than she was powerfully angry and that she could.

Unlike Ashley, dad had no one to call upon who could effectively intercede on his behalf. He would not be foolish enough to involve Kate in this directly and Grams had obviously sided with her. If not, it would not have been dad darkening their door, but Grams. She would have shown up here, bearing housewarming gifts, smiling sweetly, and wielding guilt upon her like a heavy hammer, like only she knew how. Alexis knew, however she could only realistically expect so much support from Grams in this matter. Dad was still her son, and Grams would stand against him only so far and no farther. Not even for her.

The cutting remark about his engagement to Kate and whether she and her dad were right for each other had been petty and cruel. She had known it as soon as the words came out of her mouth. Known it was wrong, and that she had only said it to hurt him. It was petty and beneath her and she knew it. She, of all people short of Grams, knew how hard dad had worked. How much he had suffered and endured for his relationship with Kate to get where it was now. He had put in more work than she had ever seen him put into a relationship before and he had earned what he had with her now.

His utterly crestfallen expression just before she closed the door on him nearly broke her resolve to be angry and had certainly broken her heart. She watched through the peep hole as he slumped his shoulders, turned and walked away. When she finally turned back from the door toward the living room to where Pi was meditating, she felt like she had kicked a puppy and clubbed a baby seal.

She resolved to apologize for that much anyway. As soon as she had a chance to cool off. She was still too angry with him to see things clearly. Too angry that he couldn't be more supportive of her relationship with Pi. That he couldn't simply trust that she knew her own heart. That she was right and he was wrong.

This wasn't really about Kate Beckett. Or about her father moving forward with his life without her.

Wasn't it?

* * *

Richard Castle had walked down the stairs from the third floor walk-up (could it really be called a walk-up if the elevator didn't work?) Alexis shared with Pi feeling like a chastised schoolboy instead of her father. He called a taxi, but had gotten out after giving the driver a generous tip for the unscheduled stop, as soon as they reached midtown (he knew better than to be walking around Washington Heights at this hour of the evening) and elected to walk the remaining four blocks to the loft.

By the time he reached the park where he used to take Alexis to play his melancholy and hurt feelings that she had not accepted his apology (he was genuinely sorry he had behaved so badly that night) and had shut him out had begun to fade. In their place, he found himself beginning to feel...anger. With every step closer to the loft he took, the angrier he got. By the time he walked in the door and threw his coat in the closet, he was furious. More angry than he had been at his daughter in her entire life.

_"Accept Pi?"_ He thought to himself. _"How could she possibly expect me to simply accept him after the way she introduced me to him?_

"_She brought him into my house while I was on a book tour!" _

"_Didn't even have the common decency to do it to my face!" _

"_Let him have the run of the place...including my bedroom, it seems, and not, even compel him to comport himself like a proper house guest!_

"_And now she expects, no actually __**demands**__, that I accept him?"_

He knew he was really really angry and blowing the whole thing a little out of proportion, he was sure. But on the other hand Alexis was expecting far too much from him at this point. She just could not, would not see that.

The time was coming when he would have to explain the facts of life to his daughter...and have a one on one "father to boyfriend" chat with Pi. The one Alexis had managed to talk him out of having with both Owen and Ashley. But not tonight, in fact not for a few days even.

He was far too angry with her to handle this matter properly. Not without completely alienating Alexis in the process, which was not what he wanted. And he was sure it wasn't what she wanted either. He was not too angry, however to make a few discrete phone calls to a few of those "guys" he had everywhere. Arrange a few things.

It was long since time he stopped being Alexis' buddy, playmate, and confidante and started being her father. He thought he had done a much better job of teaching her about respect. About how it went both ways. If she wanted him to accept her choice then she should have presented it in a way that was acceptable.

Now he needed to find a way to explain that to her without making the whole situation worse.


	2. Revelation

**Chapter Two**

**Revelation**

It had been four days since her confrontation with her father at her apartment door, and Alexis Castle was beginning to wonder if perhaps she had been a bit too harsh with him. He had always been sensitive to criticism from her. Her father had placed a high value on her opinion for as long as she could remember. He had broken off affairs with women over much less severe reactions on her part than she had displayed that evening. Including the Federal Agent (dad never mentioned her by name) that he had based Clara Strike on when she was six.

She had not expected complete radio silence from him, not for this long anyway. She had expected him to slip away and sulk overnight, maybe even a good portion of the next day, but not for this long. She had expected a battery of voice mails and text messages expressing how sorry he was and begging for her forgiveness.

He had never gone completely off grid on her before. Not even when she had practically begged him to him to. She had turned off her cell phone as soon as her flight touched down in Costa Rica, as outside of the airport there was almost no cell reception and she hadn't wanted to waste her battery. When she plugged in her cell phone to charge on the flight home with Pi there had been ten text messages from him, the majority of which were in the first few days after she had arrived.

By then, she was far too angry after Grams had spoken to her on one of her few trips into town to check in at home, to look at them. They were still unopened.

After four days of complete silence from her dad, her resolve softened and she finally opened the trash file and retrieved them. Upon reading the first two, her heart nearly stopped in her chest and her face flushed with shame.

The first one read:

**Your grandmother is right, Pumpkin,  
no more putting it off.  
Going to ask Kate to marry me.**

And the second, sent only half an hour later, along with a photo of the ring on Kate's finger, read.

**She said yes!**

"Oh, my god." she whispered aloud.

All of this time she had been so powerfully angry that dad hadn't told her about the engagement. That she had had to find out from Grams weeks after the fact, when all along she had been the first person he had reached out to, on both counts. She felt dizzy, like she was going to be sick.

To be fair, she hadn't hunted down Pi to get even with her dad. She had met him weeks before the phone call from Grams that had set her off. Though even before now she could not rationalize how she had let her anger with her dad get so far out of control. It was completely unlike her.

She had been intimate with him for some time before that, nearly three weeks if she recalled correctly. Grams must have assumed she knew or she would not have said anything, now that she was thinking about it rationally. Had dad wanted to wait to tell her face to face, grams would have respected that. Like she had after catching Kate and dad together that first morning. She had let dad break the news to her then, and she would have this time, too.

But once the anger had risen up in her blood, that was all she wrote, she had sent every one of dad's messages to the trash bin and set about getting even. For what, even then she wasn't sure. She simply assumed the worst of dad, that if he was replacing her so readily with Kate, then she would replace dad too and reacted accordingly. She had never done that with anyone before, and did not know where the impulse came from.

Now she knew that she had hurt dad for nothing. He had tried to tell her before anyone else, and she had been to angry and vindictive to bother checking her facts.

"What's the matter, Lex?" Pi asked, looking up from his latest fruit concoction.

"Dad tried to apologize a few days ago, Pi." she replied.

"Isn't that what you wanted, Lex? That's a good thing, right? That he's trying?"

"Yes and no, Pi." Alexis replied with a sigh. Pi had been less bothered than she had been about the whole thing, she mused.

Nothing ever seemed to ruffle Pi's feathers, or dampen his enthusiasm for life. Not even after the whole time her dad had been rude and condescending to him that night. When dad had offered the couch (which she had been on the verge of accepting) and Pi had asked what color it was, he was only trying to be funny, but by then, dad had come looking for a fight and it just set him off. Which in turn caused her to react strongly in Pi's defense. It had been the last straw that night.

It was Pi's near inability to let even the worst setbacks bother him that had attracted her to him in the first place. She had arrived in Costa Rica, tired, wounded and broken inside. Trying to find out who she was since Paris, and there was Pi. He had been mugged the day before, she found out later, his passport had been stolen along with most of his meager possessions, and he just shrugged it off like it was nothing.

She found herself wanting to be more like Pi. Wanted nothing to bother her, none of the terrible, awful things that had happened over the last year to touch her, the way nothing seemed to touch him. Dad's suddenly intimate relationship with Detective Beckett. His being framed for murder and and being locked up in holding. The night he and Beckett had gone missing and nobody could find them. Mom's stay at the loft when she had mono, which, as always, opened more wounds than it closed. And even more damaging, being kidnapped and whisked away to Paris. Seeing dangerous people drag her father up to the cage where she was being kept and pointed guns at him.

She wanted none of it to touch her anymore, like nothing ever seemed to touch Pi. To shrug it all off and move on with her life, like he did. She wanted to be like that.

Only she wasn't.

When she had spoken to Grams, and she mentioned the engagement like she already knew about it, she had chatted aimlessly about the banana farm like nothing was wrong, while the whole time she had become overwhelmed by an anger and a fierce desire to get even with dad, that she now realized had been out of all proportion to the provocation. Even if dad had kept it from her.

Before that she had intended to have dad meet Pi before he left on his book tour. Ask if it was okay for him to stay in the guest room while he was on his book tour, at least until he could get his bearings. She had even considered asking dad to use some of his connections to help Pi replace his stolen passport.

Instead, she had done none of those things. She had spent the last of her allowance to buy a forged passport for Pi from a less than savory individual. Even letting the skeevy little bastard feel her up to sweeten the deal. She then delayed her return home by two weeks so that dad was would be gone when the two of them arrived.

She had concealed the existence of the guest room from Pi and convinced him that dad was cool with their living arrangements, as long as he slept on the couch after dad actually got home. That it was part of the deal for dad letting her keep a boy in the house. She knew it was only a matter of time before some of Pi's more ...quaint... habits, such as his open views regarding house cleaning and personal space to work their way under dad's skin. She had found their current residence before dad got home from his aborted side trip to DC to spend the weekend with Kate, but waited until he had finally had enough and put his foot down before she sprung it on him.

Dad had nearly died, and her resolve to punish him nearly faltered, but then Kate had gotten fired from her DC job. (under circumstances she would normally have applauded) When the smoke cleared and she seemed to be taking residence without so much as a second thought from her dad, her anger had boiled over again.

The morning Captain Gates had called, she had sent Pi into dad's bedroom unannounced on purpose, and had hidden the note Grams had left about her fight scene class in the living room to make things even more difficult. It was with an almost sadistic glee that she had made a point of saying Captain Gates had called for her dad rather than Kate. It had felt good to stick it to her at the time.

_When had I become so much like my mother?_ She thoughtm to herself, _ This is more like something she would do not me._

Alexis was mortified.

_I probably could have gotten dad to at least grudgingly accept Pi, and his place in my life had I been straight with him from the beginning. _She thought to herself, in a stunning moment of clarity.

She knew her dad had been having a hard enough time accepting the fact that she was growing up and finding her own place in the world. He had taken all of her other attempts to exert her independence in stride. The incident with her costume at Supernova Con notwithstanding. Her behaving like an immature jackass had not made it any easier for him to accept.

This time she had told dad to back off, and he did. All the way off, it would seem. Four days of complete silence from him was the equivalent of the silent treatment. He had never gone this long without contacting her before.

It was a bad sign.

* * *

Kate Beckett knew that something had been bothering Rick for the last few days. He had spent nearly every day for the past four sitting quietly in his chair by her desk while she completed her paperwork from the last case. Then again, while she completed the overdue paperwork from her reinstatement into the NYPD, including her insurance forms, life insurance policy and tax documentation. He simply sat in his chair and wrote quietly in the little notebook he brought with him, not even distracting himself with Angry Birds, or staring at her creepily like he usually did when he thought she wasn't paying attention.

He was...quiet. Too quiet. It simply wasn't like him.

Kate was pretty sure it had something to do with Alexis moving in with Pi. She had tried to counsel him that pushing Alexis would only make her push back, make her even more intractable. Just like she had been when her father had done much the same once upon a time. Though to be honest, she rather wished she had listened to dad with the grunge rocker. If she never smelled another clove cigarette for the rest of her life, it would be far too soon.

This odd, quiet serenity had begun nearly four days ago, after he had come back from his attempt to apologize to Alexis for his behavior at her housewarming dinner. He had spent the last three nights at her place, where he had been very...attentive to her needs. So attentive last night, in fact, that she had had to forgo her four inch heels for a pair of flat soled biker boots as she was still walking funny this morning.

He had spoken on his phone only once in the last four days that she had been aware of, and a small package had been delivered to him here at the precinct by bike messenger. An event, which had been met by a raised eyebrow from Captain Gates directed at her desk. A package that bore the seal of the Dutch Embassy. (she had peeked in his messenger bag while he made their lattes)

Her assumption that his state of mind was related to his daughter when her own phone rang and Alexis picture and number had popped up on her screen. Her phone had been confiscated during the brief period in DC while she filled out her exit paperwork for the AG's office and Rick had been packing her things in her place there.

It had been wiped clean of data when it had been returned to her, though thankfully she had backed up most of her personal files. She had not known when Rick had reprogrammed Alexis number into it after that.

"Hey, Alexis" she said when she took the call, not sure why the young redhead had called her instead of her dad. "what can I do for you?"

"Have you seen dad lately?" Alexis replied, a nervous, almost hesitant tone in her voice.

"He's sitting in his chair next to my desk, Alexis, would you like me to put him on?" Kate said back.

"No...that's okay, Detec...uh...Kate." Alexis said haltingly pausing before she continued,

"We had a fight...after he came to apologize...I said some harsh things...and he hasn't spoken to me since."

To say that Kate was shocked would be an understatement. She looked over at her partner and fiance on the other side of the Homicide squad room, a vision of serenity, his face and body language betraying not even a trace of distress as he sipped his latte and chatted with Ryan about proper baby swaddling technique. Sharing tidbits of his own experience as a first time dad.

"Is he okay, Kate?" Alexis nearly whispered at the other end of the line, "I've tried to call him six times today and each time I was sent straight to voice mail."

Kate knew this was a really bad sign. Castle had never, ever intentionally let a call from Alexis go to voice mail. In fact she could recall the number of times he had failed to answer by the second ring when she called in the past six years on the fingers of one hand.

No matter how enticing a case may have been, he was on his phone and out the door like a pistol shot whenever Alexis called to say she needed him. Whatever had passed between them that night must have been really bad indeed if he not only hadn't taken her calls, but had set his phone to send her straight to voice mail. His phone had only rung once all day, and it had been the bike messenger service calling for him to come down to sign for his package from The Netherlands.

"He seems okay to me, Alexis, but he has been really quiet lately." Kate said back to her, suddenly deciding to deviate from her course back to her desk and instead headed for the woman's restroom.

There was a distinct silence on the other end, like Alexis was trying to work up the nerve to say something, but was fumbling with her words, like she was ashamed of herself. She could remember feeling much the same once upon a time whenever she had fought over a boy with her dad and she had given him the silent treatment.

"Kate" the girl finally said in a small, quiet voice, "I think I owe you an apology."

"Why, Alexis? What do you mean?" Beckett replied, her voice dripping with concern.

"When dad came back to my apartment to say he was sorry for the way I refused to accept his apology, and I kinda lashed out at him before shutting him out. I..." Alexis began

Kate began to feel a sense of dread, and a small amount of anger on Rick's behalf.

"What did you say, Alexis?" she asked, barely able to keep the reproach out of her voice.

"I led him to believe that I didn't approve of your relationship with dad, that I wasn't sure the two of you were right for each other."

Kate nearly collapsed into the wall of the woman's bathroom. A short gasp cutting off any reply she might have made. One of her worst fears about her relationship with Castle washing over her in full force. That he would be asked to choose between her and his daughter. That she would come between them.

"It's not true, Kate, I didn't mean any of it. I only said that because I was angry, and lashed out the only way I could. I just wanted to shut him up. Wanted him to go away and leave me alone so I could cool down. I've been so fixated on trying to make him accept Pi. To accept my need for space. To force him to let me have my own life that I may have pushed him too far, that I pushed him away,"

Kate could tell by the sound of her voice, that Alexis was in tears.

"I'm sorry Kate, I'm so sorry. It was petty and selfish of me and I'm so sorry Kate."

As Kate was finally starting to get her breathing under control, she heard Alexis utter the nicest thing the girl had ever said to her.

"I think you are the best thing that has happened to my dad in a very long time, Kate. You made my dad grow up, he's better for having known you."

Kate Beckett didn't know what to say. When she finally said goodbye to the girl and walked out of the bathroom, however, Rick was gone.

The only clue to the reason for his departure was a brief note left on her computer screen on a post-it.

**I have a small family matter to take care of.  
I'll meet you for dinner tonight at your place  
at seven o'clock, my treat... Castle**

_**Author's Note** I guess this will take a bit longer than I thought, though not much. Next chapter should sum things up, with Castle finally confronting his daughter over this whole affair. Don't worry, this will not be as harsh as you think._


	3. Facing The Music

**Chapter Three**  
**Facing The Music**

Alexis Castle was at wit's end. Her guilt over her own behavior the past couple months had her heart twisted in knots .

Yes, she had had a valid point at the beginning, one she had needed her dad to understand about accepting that she was growing up and respecting her choices. It was part of the rationale behind going to Costa Rica in the first place. She needed to figure out who she really was, out from under the shadow of her father's scrutiny and protection. It was still a valid point, it just got lost in translation because of the less than respectful way she went about it the past few weeks.

She had been asking herself all day, how was she supposed to expect her father to respect her choices, to respect that she was an adult, when she had so clearly not behaved like an adult, not treated him with respect, nor respected his choices in life? Now she was deeply afraid, no she was _terrified_, that in her anger over the engagement, she had asked herself this question far too late. That she had broken the pea pod bond and damaged the relationship between herself and her father beyond repair.

It was at this point, in the depth of her despair, that the familiar ring tone of "dad...dad...dad" went off on her iPhone.

**Be at the loft 5PM Bring Pi  
I need to speak to both  
of you privately.**

**Dad.**

It was likely the most terse message she had ever received from her father. The message was neither angry, nor sounded in any way conciliatory. Not that Alexis was expecting much of the latter at this point. Dad intended to speak his peace, and both she and Pi were going to listen. There was, however, no room for interpretation, this was not a request.

Up to only a day ago, she would have either ignored his message entirely, or sent an angry, outraged message of her own. Demanding to know what this was all about, and renewing her demand that he show her more respect. '_Oh, the difference a day makes' _Alexis mused to herself.

Her revelations from the day before and her phone conversation had her mindset in a completely different place than she had been since returning from Costa Rica. She hadn't merely jumped a turnstile in the subway these past two months. She now realized that she had done something far worse.

She had tried to ram her independence down her dad's throat, along with her relationship with Pi. She had demanded that he recognize her choices and opinions as valid, while casting aspersions on his own choices, his right to have his own opinions and keep his own counsel in the process. For no other reason than that his were not in agreement with her own.

He was no longer behaving like the dad who let her see herself as the parent in their relationship. No longer the playmate and partner in crime she had known since as far back as she could remember. He was taking back the role of parent from her and was no longer going to brook her near constant disrespect. He'd had enough, and he was putting his foot down.

She would be there on time, with Pi in tow. She had demanded for the last two months that dad accept Pi and respect his place in her life. Only she had comported herself badly throughout the entire affair, and given her dad no valid reason to do either of those things. Nor had she given him any reason to respect her choices when she had not granted him the same courtesy. Dad had deserved better from her than the abysmal behavior that she had displayed toward him lately and now it was time to face the music.

* * *

**Castle Loft****5PM sharp**

When the two of them arrived at the loft, if she had been expecting a warm greeting from Grams and dinner on the table, she would have been sorely disappointed. Instead, dad had met her at the door, motioned them inside and waved them over to the couch. Ever the gracious host, even as angry with her as she figured he must be, he handed her a cup of coffee, made precisely the way she took it at college. (she rarely drank coffee at "home" but she was only a little surprised that he had taken the time to find out) and him, a fruit smoothie. A true show of Noblesse oblige toward an invited guest his home. A gesture on his part that she really hadn't expected, making her own behavior lately seem even more foolish.

As they passed the couch where Pi had slept for the better part of the last two months, her dad waved her to sit as he motioned for Pi to follow him into his office. She moved to object, but her dad silenced her objection with a glance. Obviously this conversation was for Pi, and Pi alone.

Pi followed Rick into his office and sat down in the chair opposite his at his desk. Alexis had sat in that chair many times growing up and it irked him just a little for her live-in boyfriend to be sitting there. He opened the center drawer and pulled out the two packages he had had delivered to him at the precinct.

"I took advantage of your less than diligent view of house cleaning to obtain your prints and sent them to people I know in both Interpol and the Amsterdam police. I know everything there is to know about you, Pi. You aren't necessarily a bad kid, but there's enough there to have you deported back to Amsterdam if I have to. Don't make that necessary and in return I will keep that information to myself. Just that you know that I know is enough".

He opened the package from the Dutch Consulate and handed Pi a new passport.

"I also got you a new passport, with a backdated stamp for your entry into the United States. Don't lose this one, I won't do it again."

"Thanks, Mr C.! I really appreciate it!"

Pi brightened as he looked at the brand new passport, unsure where Alexis' father had gotten the photo of him for it, but he was certain he didn't want to know. Castle waved him off before he could start to gush.

"I didn't do it for you, Pi, I did it for my daughter." Castle began, as stern as when he started, the look in his eye silencing Pi where he sat, mildly intimidated.

_'Good,' _he thought to himself, '_Alexis let him know I'm not fooling around here.'_

"Whatever it was Alexis did to get you here," Rick continued, "was likely highly illegal, and if you actually care about her, you should not have allowed her to do that on your behalf. If, as she wants to believe, you actually care about her as much as she does for you, you need to start putting her first, like I have for her entire life."

The second thing he pulled out was from the parcel he had gotten from INS, an official "green card."

"As much as I am sure you enjoy your job _counting bees_, without one of these I am sure you had to get said job under the table. If you are going to pull your own weight in the living arrangement you currently share with my daughter. I suggest you get a more reliable, better paying one, at least on the side."

Pi was perceptive enough to know that this rather one sided conversation was drawing to a close. He wasn't a complete fool. But, as he rose from the chair and turned for the door, Rick cleared his throat, stilling the younger man's movement toward the door, as he moved in close enough for his cold blue eyes to bore straight into Pi's.

"As Alexis may have told you, I do a lot of research for my books to keep them accurate. To that end, I have cultivated a rogues gallery of very well connected friends in a lot of unusual places. Not all of these friends are particularly law abiding, some of them don't officially exist, and some of them quite honestly scare the shit out of even me."

He saw that Pi was beginning to wilt under his direct, unwavering scrutiny, which meant the point he was trying to make was not lost upon him. _"Good, he isn't a complete fool." _Rick mused to himself. He usually played this conversation for laughs, but this time he wasn't kidding.

"Let me make one thing perfectly clear." Rick continued, "If you _ever_ hurt Alexis, or break her heart any more than it already has been, you will, quite simply, _not be around_ to do so again. Take that however you need to to sleep at night."

* * *

When Alexis saw Pi walk out of her dad's office, his skin two shades paler that when he went in, she knew her father had had _"the talk" _with him and he had not been kidding around. Pi was clearly intimidated.

Now it was her turn, and she clearly was not looking forward to it. She was about to rise to Pi's defense, her _"What did you do?" _expression clearly in place. But he didn't rise to the bait, only indicated the leather sofa in the office, offering to refill her coffee, which she politely declined. Once the pleasantries were observed, he took her hand in both of his and began to speak.

"Alexis, I know that I haven't had the easiest time letting go since you graduated from high school and went off to college. That I haven't had the easiest time seeing you as an adult and that I need let you make your own way and your own mistakes. It hasn't been easy for me. I look at you and still see that little redheaded pink bundle the doctor placed in my hands twenty years ago, or the three year old I used to take to the park. Kate has been trying for years to help me see that. Even before we got together. With very mixed success."

"But Pumpkin, if you want me to start seeing you as the adult you are becoming, if you want me to accept and respect the choices you make, then you need to start presenting them in such a way that reflects that. You need to start behaving like the responsible adult I know you are and can be."

Rick paused for a moment, choosing his words with great care. He wanted to get his point across without insulting or alienating her, but he also knew he needed to make that point completely clear.

"You were right the other night. I don't accept Pi. I neither respect him as a man nor the way he comports himself. I'm sorry, but I honestly don't see in him what you do, and I probably never will. My offer to try to learn to accept him was not sincere and I should not have made it. I have never lied to you Alexis, not in your entire life. It would be wrong of me to start now."

Alexis nodded, noting what he said and left unsaid. She was hurt and disappointed that he couldn't make that leap she wanted him to, but she understood she had not exactly done a great job of trying to impress upon him what she saw in Pi either.

"You told me the other night that you didn't want to expose Pi to my disapproval and lack of acceptance, Alexis, but it was _your_ actions that virtually guaranteed that from the beginning. I might have been willing to meet you halfway there, had you presented him to me properly and treated me with more respect, but you didn't do that."

Alexis broke eye contact, trying to hide her shame at her behavior. She had come to much the same conclusion not that long ago herself. It bothered her more than a little that she could have gotten what she really wanted, had she handled things the right way, the way she should have from the beginning.

She couldn't bring herself to meet his eyes as he continued.

"You brought him into my home without my consent when you knew I was away. Gave him full run of the house, allowed him to violate Kate's privacy and mine with absolutely no regard or respect for my feelings one way or the other. Then to add insult to injury you looked me in the eye and _demanded_ that I accept him and respect your choices after spending nearly _two months_ disrespecting me and mine in my own home. How you handled this whole affair was not fair to me and to be honest not necessarily fair to Pi either."

Alexis looked up in shock at that, she hadn't expected her father to point out any form of unfairness to Pi, given his already stated disdain for him. That it was partially her own actions that had cost Pi her father's respect sat heavily upon her heart, as a single tear coursed down her cheek.

"I honestly thought I had raised you better than that. Taught you more about respect for others than that. Obviously, I failed you as a father somewhere along the line and I am honestly, sincerely sorry for that, Pumpkin."

That admission caused her even more shame than any other part of this situation. That, at the heart of it all, he blamed himself for the way she'd acted. That they honestly caused him to believe that he had failed her as a father. It broke her heart to know that he gave himself so little credit as a father. She would not have traded her life with him for anything and could not contemplate what that life might have been like had her mother decided to raise her, instead.

"I can't promise you that I will ever be able to fully accept Pi at this point. You can't force that, and it was wrong of you to try. It will be up to _him_ to prove to _my_ satisfaction that he is worthy of you, because I honestly don't believe he is. It is just something that you are going to have to get used to."

"I love you Alexis, with all of my heart. I have from the day you were born. No matter what choices you make and whether I agree with them or not, you will always come first in my heart and will always, always have a home here. For your sake, and yours alone, I will tolerate Pi. If he wants more than that from me, if he wants my acceptance and respect, then _he_ is going to have to put forth the effort to earn them. You can't demand that from me for him, it doesn't work that way."

Rick pulled a small key ring with a single key on it out of his pocket and placed it in the palm of her hand, gently curling her slender fingers around it.

"Here's the key to the storage unit. The old furniture from the last remodel and a few accent pieces from the Hamptons house that might fit the theme the two of you are going for are in there, as well as the couch I offered you before. Not to mention a few things from the place I had before I met your mother that even Pi might appreciate. You and Pi are welcome to go through the storage unit to your heart's content and take whatever you need. I trust you to know which boxes to stay out of."

Alexis looked down at the storage unit key in her hands and could not believe that after everything she had said and done to her father, that he was still willing to make this gesture. That he hadn't written her off as a lost cause. She had allowed herself to forget that nearly everything he did, began and ended with his love for her. Love that had never wavered in the entire twenty years of her life. Not even her mother had ever shown her such devotion.

"I'm sorry daddy, for being such a bitch since I came home. For not respecting your wishes or your privacy and for using Kate to hurt your feelings. I was angry, and I didn't mean what I said about her that night. She really is the best thing that ever happened to you. I hope you can forgive me."

Alexis sprang forward and threw herself into her father's arms, hugging him fiercely with tears spilling out of her eyes, as her father whispered in her ear.

"I wasn't exactly being a very good guest in your home, either, pumpkin, there was nothing to forgive. Though that apology really should be directed at Kate. She is very sensitive about your approval. She's only held off from moving in, because she doesn't want you to think you're being replaced."

"I know, dad, I spoke to Kate earlier and apologized to her as well."

"That's good, pumpkin, because I hope to keep her around for a long time, so that she can give you all of that advice she's been giving me over the years about you in person. There is just some _"girl stuff" _that a father really doesn't need to know about."

* * *

As Richard Castle finally saw Alexis and Pi out, he hoped he had done the right thing. That he hadn't been too harsh, but everything seemed to be working out.

After putting the two of them in a cab, he hurried back up to his floor. Kate had called with a change in plans. She was coming over to the loft to help cheer him up. She told him she would be wearing the outfit she'd had on when they had been cuffed together two years ago...and bringing her handcuffs.

"_This time we do it without the tiger." _she had said.

He liked the sound of that. The only tiger he needed in his bedroom was Kate Beckett.

Let the games begin.

* * *

_**Author's note** And there you have it. The end of my little tale. I think that 6x07 was a much better epilogue for this business than I could write, so I just decided to end it here and write myself out of the corner I left myself in. If you were expecting Rick to punish Alexis I guess you needed to think again. Alexis punishes herself more thoroughly than anyone else ever will._

_Now I feel the inexorable pull to work on some of my other fic. Until tomorrow everybody._


End file.
